Post 3 - Feb 14, 10

This week the class has really helped to get me thinking about interviewing. It's a skill that I don't feel very comfortable with yet, but it's something that I think may be very important.

John McPhee seems to be a master interviewer. He gets such great details and, what feels like, a very thorough understanding of all his characters.

I'm reading "Coming Into The Country" at the moment and I'm wondering how he ever came to meet Brad Snow and Lilly Allen, two people trying to live as naturally as possible in Alaska. The investigative research in this article is great. He comes to understand a local point of a view and the problems they're facing. He then goes on to find his own proof for their argument, which leads him to more interesting people, and they all seem very comfortable to talk to him.

I'm also reading "All The President's Men" for another class, which is partly helping to spike my interest in interviewing. It seems like the act of fact creation. If one person says something, then you can quote it, which can be used to further an argument or opinion. I guess that makes journalism seem pretty shaky, but I think that's the point of cross referencing. One opinion doesn't really mean anything, but if you find that same opinion amongst a bunch of different people, then your argument starts to appear pretty true, or at least worth considering.

You can also use credible sources, but the whole credentials thing seems pretty flawed to me. I don't trust the opinion of someone working in whatever department handles land claims in governments when considering the morality of unused land ownership, even though you would think they'd have the "right" answer. This is the point of the critical liberal arts students, we need our writers to question the source and everything about their position that would influence their opinions, because I don't believe its a very common trait. This is why a PhD or bureaucratic title alone doesn't cut it for me. And so far McPhee has been great at expressing why I should trust, or respect, the sources giving him a lot of his information.

-Adam